Need Advice, about to cry

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Mizeri
Mizeri Posts: 9
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
Hi, So I have looked up a bunch about weight fluctuation but I really don't understand at which point it becomes actually weight gain. I weighed myself on monday and I was 140.8, on Tuesday I had bounced up to 141.8 and now this morning I'm at 142!! Why am I gaining weight? If it was a fluctuation shouldn't it have gone down by now?
I'm pretty sure my diary is public so you can take a look at that. Also I finished my TOM on saturday so I know thats not the cause.
Someone please help because I had just reached my goal weight and am feeling very discouraged.
Also on a weekly basis what is the average weight fluctuation?
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Replies

  • stuffinmuffin
    stuffinmuffin Posts: 985 Member
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    I really wouldn't worry about minor fluctuations like that, but I can understand your frustration.

    There are many things that influence your weight, hormones, water retention (from sodium or even muscle repair), food being digested/in the colon etc. If you weigh yourself throughout the day you will be surprised about how much it changes too.

    My advice would be not to worry. If you're not oever-eating, you're not going to be gaining weight. Give yourself a week off the scales and try it again in 7 days. I haven't been on any scales for about 6 weeks.

    You can also judge by your clothes whether or not you're putting on weight.
  • DemoraFairy
    DemoraFairy Posts: 1,806 Member
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    If you've just gone into maintenance you always put a bit of weight back on as you refill your glycogen supplies. And even still, fluctuations usually take more than just 2 days to go. They do for me, anyway.

    If it makes you feel better, have a look at my logs: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AooK5Caqet1qdGZ6QUd4MmxOaXRMa0x4dUk1dVQwMUE&usp=drive_web#gid=0 I record my weight everyday. As you can see from the graph there's a lot of fluctuation going on! I'm currently up exactly a pound from this time last week, but not worried at all. I know it'll go, cause it always does.
  • RaspberryKeytoneBoondoggle
    RaspberryKeytoneBoondoggle Posts: 1,349 Member
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    I'm close to your weight, maintaining and I fluctuate by 5 to 7 pounds. On occasion it really is because of over eating, but when this happens I just buckle down. I often gain two pounds and it makes no sense. I try not to think about it too much so I can be positive and patient.
  • husseycd
    husseycd Posts: 814 Member
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    I went from 132.8 yesterday to 129.1 today. And that 132.8 was a 2.5 lb sudden increase. Unless you ate the entire house, you cannot gain 1 lb of fat in one day. Seriously. I must've eaten something salty (that stir-fry my husband made. Soy sauce), maybe combined with the weight session I did on Monday.

    Anyway, don't stress about it. There are some good posts about glycogen stores, etc ("Why you gain when you eat more of your cut" is a good post) here on MFP. Search function should get you to many.
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
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    I am going through something similar, so I really, really understand your frustration. I had hit all the calorie marks that had kept me stable for 8 months. Then overnight I gained 3 pounds. I traveled to a very hot climate and put on 3 more. Without any overeating.

    I KNOW - in my mind - that's it water. It has to be, fat can't deposit that fat without the materials to build it. And my ankles are swollen and I'm bloated. But it is so demoralizing looking at a scale that's higher than it's been for almost a year.

    Good news: It's been two weeks and it is now steadily, slowly coming down. Drink water. Watch your calories. And wait.

    Good luck!
  • ItsCasey
    ItsCasey Posts: 4,022 Member
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    My advice is stop weighing yourself every day if you're really in maintenance. You're talking about 2 lbs. And for a person who is maintaining, that is well within the normal range of fluctuation. Maintenance doesn't mean being exactly the same weight every day. That's impossible.
  • twixlepennie
    twixlepennie Posts: 1,074 Member
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    Hi, So I have looked up a bunch about weight fluctuation but I really don't understand at which point it becomes actually weight gain. I weighed myself on monday and I was 140.8, on Tuesday I had bounced up to 141.8 and now this morning I'm at 142!! Why am I gaining weight? If it was a fluctuation shouldn't it have gone down by now?
    I'm pretty sure my diary is public so you can take a look at that. Also I finished my TOM on saturday so I know thats not the cause.
    Someone please help because I had just reached my goal weight and am feeling very discouraged.
    Also on a weekly basis what is the average weight fluctuation?

    Take a peek at my diary and look in my notes section, where I record my weight every morning. I will always weigh at my highest weight on Monday and my lowest weight on Friday, and there's a 2.5lb difference between the two in the last week :) This is my normal pattern and sometimes I will hit 3-4lbs higher on Monday, but it's down again by Friday.

    Our weight will always fluctuate and that's not based on actual weight loss/gain.
  • Magserdo
    Magserdo Posts: 11 Member
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    Dont weigh yourself! It can become a vicious cycle to obsess about the number on the scale.If you really want to note differences in yourself, take pictures once a week. If you have a picture for every week of your journey, it can make it easier to notice the physical weight loss.
  • Monty_P
    Monty_P Posts: 62 Member
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    It's really hard constantly looking at the numbers on a scale isn't it? I nearly died the other day as I'd seemingly but on 6lbs!

    I keep having to say to myself it's my size not my weight that matters!
  • twixlepennie
    twixlepennie Posts: 1,074 Member
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    Dont weigh yourself! It can become a vicious cycle to obsess about the number on the scale.If you really want to note differences in yourself, take pictures once a week. If you have a picture for every week of your journey, it can make it easier to notice the physical weight loss.

    There's nothing with daily weighing-it can be a great tool. However, you need to be able to remove emotion from it. For me, I weigh myself daily, record it on my graph and then go on with my day. It's like brushing my teeth or combing my hair. I have absolutely no emotion attached to the scale/numbers, I use it as a tool to keep me on track with maintenance, like using a food scale etc.
  • SashleyA
    SashleyA Posts: 122 Member
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    Dont weigh yourself! It can become a vicious cycle to obsess about the number on the scale.If you really want to note differences in yourself, take pictures once a week. If you have a picture for every week of your journey, it can make it easier to notice the physical weight loss.

    There's nothing with daily weighing-it can be a great tool. However, you need to be able to remove emotion from it. For me, I weigh myself daily, record it on my graph and then go on with my day. It's like brushing my teeth or combing my hair. I have absolutely no emotion attached to the scale/numbers, I use it as a tool to keep me on track with maintenance, like using a food scale etc.

    I agree with this. If you are emotional about the numbers on the scale, it's best to not weigh yourself. If you like to see how you can fluctuate depending on week, time of month, etc, it's a good way to be in tune with how your body holds on to water and weight. It's perfectly ok to have these kind of fluctuations and one of the reasons I started weighing myself daily is so that I could reassure myself of that.
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,136 Member
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    1. calm down
    2. back the hell away from the scale
    3. average weight fluctuation is about +/-5 pounds a day and/or week
    4. weigh yourself once a week, on the same day, at the same time, each time.
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,136 Member
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    Dont weigh yourself! It can become a vicious cycle to obsess about the number on the scale.If you really want to note differences in yourself, take pictures once a week. If you have a picture for every week of your journey, it can make it easier to notice the physical weight loss.

    There's nothing with daily weighing-it can be a great tool. However, you need to be able to remove emotion from it. For me, I weigh myself daily, record it on my graph and then go on with my day. It's like brushing my teeth or combing my hair. I have absolutely no emotion attached to the scale/numbers, I use it as a tool to keep me on track with maintenance, like using a food scale etc.
    I think OP is the kind of person that should not be weighing herself daily....just saying...
  • MityMax96
    MityMax96 Posts: 5,778 Member
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    My advice is stop weighing yourself every day if you're really in maintenance. You're talking about 2 lbs. And for a person who is maintaining, that is well within the normal range of fluctuation. Maintenance doesn't mean being exactly the same weight every day. That's impossible.

    agree with this. :drinker: :drinker:
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    Hi, So I have looked up a bunch about weight fluctuation but I really don't understand at which point it becomes actually weight gain. I weighed myself on monday and I was 140.8, on Tuesday I had bounced up to 141.8 and now this morning I'm at 142!! Why am I gaining weight? If it was a fluctuation shouldn't it have gone down by now?
    I'm pretty sure my diary is public so you can take a look at that. Also I finished my TOM on saturday so I know thats not the cause.
    Someone please help because I had just reached my goal weight and am feeling very discouraged.
    Also on a weekly basis what is the average weight fluctuation?

    if its still 142 next monday then it may well be actual weight... until then, stressing about it just makes it worse... ignore it!

    your goal weight should be a 5lb range, you cant expect to be one number every day for ever, your body weight will fluctuate based on a million things.
  • SingingSingleTracker
    SingingSingleTracker Posts: 1,866 Member
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    Hi, So I have looked up a bunch about weight fluctuation but I really don't understand at which point it becomes actually weight gain. I weighed myself on monday and I was 140.8, on Tuesday I had bounced up to 141.8 and now this morning I'm at 142!! Why am I gaining weight? If it was a fluctuation shouldn't it have gone down by now?
    I'm pretty sure my diary is public so you can take a look at that. Also I finished my TOM on saturday so I know thats not the cause.
    Someone please help because I had just reached my goal weight and am feeling very discouraged.
    Also on a weekly basis what is the average weight fluctuation?

    Daily fluctuation is very normal.

    I fluctuate between 1 - 4 pounds per day (always weigh in the morning to keep tabs on myself). Sodium, water-retention, exercise, daily diet, cheap scale that fluctuates itself - can all contribute to what is a very normal reality that one's weight goes up and down each day. The overall trend is more important, and for maintenance you need to learn what your fluctuation range is. I'm 6'4" and maintain around 183-185 during the winter, but the fluctuations can have the scale showing me at 182 in the moring all they way up to 187 based on the prior day's consumption, exercise, sodium intake and water retention.

    You will get used to it, but I would certainly continue with the morning weigh-ins to keep tabs on the trend and then adjust your daily routine (caloric intake, exercise) to break any trend that you might see developing (such as weight gain). So if you see 140.8, 141.8, 142 and the next day it reads higher than 142 - snub that trend out right away!!! Lay off the sodium, get on the bike, go for a power walk, hit the gym, go for a run - or whatever your exercise calls for that day and watch what you eat. Get that scale to say 141, then 140.x again over the next few days. And if you do exercise, weighing before and after a workout session is a great way to monitor your hydration to avoid a negative trend of being chronically dehydrated (which most people are).

    That's how you maintain.
  • einzweidrei
    einzweidrei Posts: 381 Member
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    You need a weight range not just one solid number. That is unrealistic and what will cause you to be upset.

    Imagine my surprise when I saw my weight was some crazy number---until I realized (TMI) that I had not gone to the bathroom much in the past few days. That passed (literally, I guess) and then yesterday I ate a lot including some salty foods late at night and going over my maintenance calories for the day. Imagine my surprise when my weight was back down in my range this morning!

    It happens. And it doesn't have to make sense.
  • ChrisM8971
    ChrisM8971 Posts: 1,067 Member
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    I took a peek at your diary and if your calorie intake and calorie burns are accurate then you certainly shouldn't be gaining any weight.

    That being said you aren't doing your body any good and probably causing a lot of harm.

    You consistently eat below 1200 calories then burn off another 700 calories bring your net to 500 or less and that's something you should stop

    If you are weighing and measuring everything that you eat/drink and your burns are accurate then you should either eat more or burn less
  • wilsoje74
    wilsoje74 Posts: 1,720 Member
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    Hi, So I have looked up a bunch about weight fluctuation but I really don't understand at which point it becomes actually weight gain. I weighed myself on monday and I was 140.8, on Tuesday I had bounced up to 141.8 and now this morning I'm at 142!! Why am I gaining weight? If it was a fluctuation shouldn't it have gone down by now?
    I'm pretty sure my diary is public so you can take a look at that. Also I finished my TOM on saturday so I know thats not the cause.
    Someone please help because I had just reached my goal weight and am feeling very discouraged.
    Also on a weekly basis what is the average weight fluctuation?


    Don't weigh every day

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